- Jan 1–7 8–14 15–21 22–28 29–31
- Feb 1–4 5–11 12–18 19–25 26–28
- Mar 1–4 5–11 12–18 19–25 26–31
- Apr 1 2–8 9–15 16–22 23–29 30
- May 1–6 7–13 14–20 21–27 28–31
- Jun 1–3 4–10 11–17 18–24 25–30
- Jul 1 2–8 9–15 16–22 23–29 30–31
- Aug 1–5 6–12 13–19 20–26 27–31
- Sep 1–2 3–9 10–16 17–23 24–30
- Oct 1–7 8–14 15–21 22–28 29–31
- Nov 1–4 5–11 12–18 19–25 26–30
- Dec 1–2 3–9 10–16 17–23 24–30
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Bayh's Out
Posted by on 12.16.06 @ 10:17AM
The Washington Post
reports:
"The odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself, a little bit like David and Goliath," Bayh said in his statement. "This path -- and these long odds -- would have required me to be essentially absent from the Senate for the next year instead of working to help the people of my state and the nation." Bayh's decision to bow out of the race was first reported by The Indianapolis Star.
This is indicative of two things: 1) Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama are crowding out the rest of the field and 2) Coming on the
heels of Mark Warner's decision to bail out, it means candidates
don't think they can win by running to the right of
Hillary.
And Crowther's Tale
Posted by on 12.16.06 @ 8:28AM
The late Welles Crowther, one of the fallen civilian heroes of 9/11 who became known as the man in the red bandanna, was made an honorary firefighter by the FDNY.
Trattles Tale
Posted by on 12.16.06 @ 8:02AM
Paratrooper awarded Silver Star for helping kill 14 enemy fighters in Afghanistan. Serious heroism.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Re: That's a Rap
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 9:09PM
Paul: A much more interesting rap report appears in today's New York Times, by Marc Lacey from Havana, where the government set up the Cuban Rap Agency four years ago. It hasn't exactly been successful in stemming Afro-Cuban interest in hip hop. Most interesting is the ex-American involved in this liberating activity. Reports Lacey:
One of those working behind the scenes to aid Cuba's rappers is Cheri Dalton, an American who goes by the name Nehanda Abiodun. She is a black militant who is wanted by the F.B.I. in connection with a string of robberies, including a 1981 holdup of an armored car near Nyack, N.Y. Now living in exile in Cuba, she has formed a Havana chapter of Black August, a grass-roots group that promotes hip-hop culture."There's always been a love for music from the States in Cuba," said Ms. Abiodun, who declined to discuss her own case. "You can go back to Nat King Cole, Earth Wind & Fire and Aretha Franklin."
Nat King Cole? Dalton/Abiodun must miss America a lot more than she likes rap.
That's a Rap
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 7:38PM
The New York Times Arts section continues to expend considerable space and quasi erudition on hip hop music. Articles and reviews abound, such as the one yesterday from Kelefa Sanneh, who writes frequently on this music. This time he writes about the hip hopper Nas, whose new album proclaims that "hip hop is dead" and rails against commercialism in the music. Instead of seeing this as standard-issue pop music posturing, Sanneh takes it seriously, citing the angry objections of hip hopper Young Jeezy. Sanneh writes:
"Young Jeezy
sounded not just irritated but wounded too, asking, 'I'm-a respect
his craft, he ain't gon' respect mine?' Somehow a vague album
title had come to seem like a personal
insult."
Imagine that. I hope no one gets killed.
Later Sanneh quotes the scholarly Young Jeezy again: "'Has Nas did anything he talk about? Has Nas been on the block? Do Nas have street credibility? Is any of his homeys in the feds?'"
Sanneh then goes on to differentiate between hip-hop formalists and hip-hop culturalists. Apparently the formalists really care about the words and structures and the culturalists, like Young Jeezy, think the hip hop "way of life" is the all important thing. Sanneh seems to side with the culturalists:
"There is lots to be said for the culturalist view, which gives rappers license to break formal rules so long as they honor cultural ones, to ignore old history so long as they pay attention to current context."
Given the depraved, often homicidal culture that hip hop upholds, and considering how not just irritated but wounded Young Jeezy is feeling, I'd advise Nas to watch his back.
Rumsfeld's Parting Words
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 6:57PM
"Ours is a world of unstable dictators, weapon proliferators and rogue regimes, and each of these enemies seeks out our vulnerabilities," he said. "Ours is also a world of many friends and allies, but sadly, realistically, friends and allies with declining defense investment and declining capabilities and, I would add, as a result, with increasing vulnerabilities. All of which requires that the United States of America invest more."
Right on! We wish you the best SecDef.
Free to Choose Freedom
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 5:22PM
Brian Doherty has an interesting piece up at Reason on Milton Friedman's advice to Pinochet's regime. A taste:
Undoubtedly, Friedman's decision to interact with officials of repressive governments creates uncomfortable tensions for his libertarian admirers; I could, and often do, wish he hadn't done it. But given what it probably meant for economic wealth and liberty in the long term for the people of Chile, that's a selfish reaction.
Re: Drugs and Compassionate Libertarianism
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 3:27PM
Philip: You're correct that Radley's complaint about private-sector obbrobrium for drug use seems a bit off-point, but it's worth considering that some of that obbrobrium is driven by misconceptions about the dangers of drug use that are a major barrier to legal reform. Jacob Sullum wrote a book challenging those misconceptions, which Theodora Blanchfield reviewed back in 2003.
Pencemania
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 3:25PM
Now, I was an early advocate of Mike Pence being made Republican Minority Leader--but over at Human Events, Brian T. Johnson goes a bit overboard.
Romney Resistance
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 12:55PM
The New Republic's Ryan Lizza is the latest to weigh in on Mitt Romney and the religious right. He sits down with Brian Camenker, the Massachusetts gadfly who has been on a mission to discredit Romney among social conservatives. But even Camenker concedes that, given the alternatives of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, his gambit might not work.
The Obama Ideal
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 12:44PM
Peggy Noonan captures well why Obama is as hot as he
is:
He has obvious appeal. I asked a Young Democrat college student why he liked him. After all, I said, he has little experience. That's part of what I like, he said. "He's not an insider, he's not just a D.C. politician."
He is uncompromised by a past, it is true. He is also unburdened by a record, unworn by achievement, unwearied by long labors.
After John Kerry, and in the face of a baggage-heavy Hillary, Obama works as the hot candidate because he is a clean slate.RE: George W. Truman
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 12:40PM
Phil, I wish Bush emulated the Truman-era "Do Nothing" Republican Congress instead.
Drugs and Compassionate Libertarianism
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 12:40PM
Over at Hit and Run, Reason editor Radley Balko uses a photo of a urinal with a "Say No To Drugs" slogan printed on the plastic netting as a jumping off point to rail against anti-drug propaganda:
A theme you'll often hear from our editor is how the drug war permeates damn-near every nook and cranny of American life. We get lectured on what chemicals we can and can't ingest in our schools, in magazines and newspapers, in television shows and commercials, in movies, on billboards -- it's everywhere. Drug war insanity influences criminal justice policy, foreign policy, budget policy, education policy, and health care policy. While traveling over Thanksgiving, I was treated to a "Just Say No to Drugs" emblazoned on the back of an semi-trailer hauling office paper.
A guy can't even take a piss without being bombarded with the madness, thanks to the proactive drug warrioring by the janitorial suppy company Swisher…
I am an opponent of the drug war, both for practical reasons and because I believe that individuals should have the freedom to do whatever they want as long as they don't harm someone else in the process, and I don't think the government's role should be to protect people from themselves. However, I also believe that drug use should be strongly discouraged and condemned by society, because of the damage it is capable of doing to users, their families, and communities. I'll admit that maybe posting a slogan on a urinal isn't the most effective way to discourage drug use, and it obviously lends itself to humor. But I think Balko's comments are representative of a wider hostility among libertarians toward any attempt to discourage drug use--even if it's being done in the private sector. Balko is disgusted that "While traveling over Thanksgiving, I was treated to a 'Just Say No to Drugs' emblazoned on the back of an semi-trailer hauling office paper." Wow! What a massive imposition on his life! He must have had to pull over to recuperate!
Not only do I believe that intransigence toward discouraging drug use is wrong, I think it is harmful to the libertarians' primary aim, which is to legalize drugs-something I happen to agree with. One of the things that makes people uncomfortable with legalizing drugs is the belief that if drugs were legalized, society would be condoning drug use. I think it's important for opponents of the drug war to demonstrate that they still believe in discouraging drug use. Libertarian groups may even be better served were they to help educate people about the dangers of drug use and promote drug treatment centers to deal with the problems associated with drug addiction-call it "compassionate libertarianism," for lack of a better term.
By not only opposing the drug war but dismissing as "propaganda" any attempt to discourage drug use, libertarians are taken less seriously and they hurt their own cause.
George W. Truman?
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 11:44AM
The Washington Post reports on how Bush has learned to identify with Truman, because Truman was assailed at the time only to be vindicated by history as he laid the groundwork for a decades-long struggle against an ideological foe.
ISG Report Endorsed By Syria
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 11:40AM
David Ignatius writes about his talk with Syria's foreign minister, Walid Moallem:
As we made a line-by-line review of the group's recommendations involving Syria, Moallem expressed support for nearly every item. When I asked if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad endorsed these positions, he answered: "He is the leader. I am expressing his ideas."
Maybe James Baker can even get al-Assad to write a blurb for back cover the second printing of the report?
Watch Those Presents on the Crossing Pattern
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 9:44AM
I know I'm probably not supposed to, but I think the whole "War on Christmas" controversy is tiresome. I did, however, find this refreshing:
Top 100 Americans
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 9:29AM
The Atlantic's December issue evaluates the 100 most influential people in American history. It's remarkable to me that this kind of magazine gimmick is so often irresistible. The moment I saw it on the newsstand, I picked it up.
Of course lists like this are made to provoke controversy and
debate. The most impressive thing to me was seeing Ronald Reagan at
#17, higher than I would have expected him to be placed, and more
proof that his outsized role in recent American history has become
an accepted fact. (It was also a nice bit of poetry to see him
sandwiched between Andrew Jackson and Mark Twain). The top 10 for
the most part are reasonable and not surprising, though FDR seems a
little too high at #4 (more important than James Madison?), Dr.
King too high at #8, (way ahead of John Adams, for instance, at a
lonely #25); Walt Disney at #26 is beyond absurd; Jackie Robinson
(#35) ahead of Frederick Douglas, James Polk, and Robert E. Lee
… Elvis Presley (#66) ahead of John Brown, Noah Webster and
Enrico Fermi. And so on.
The influence of celebrity is even clearer on the Top Living Influentials list, where Muhammad Ali slots just behind William F. Buckley, and Bob Dylan tops them both. But perhaps the most poetic moment of all is that Bill Clinton is tied at #28 … with Chuck Berry.
Hacker The Hack
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 9:14AM
Alan Reynolds has a great column putting the smack down on political scientist Jacob Hacker's "Family Income Stability" index. Read the whole thing, but here is the amusing final paragraph:
I have no idea what to conclude from a set of made-up statistics that supposedly make the economy of 1996 appear 3.5 times worse than 1974, except that political scientists should not tinker with economics.
Libertarian Votes and Intellectual Fusions
Posted by on 12.15.06 @ 3:25AM
The podcast with Dave Weigel that I promised the other day is now available.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Unhealthy “Studiesâ€
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 8:19PM
Over at HealthBlawg, David Harlow points to a recent study conducted by The Commonwealth Fund and the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) showing that enrollment in consumer-directed health care plans remains largely unchanged over last year. Harlow asks, "Why haven't consumer-directed health plans taken off?" "Maybe they're just not a good idea," Harlow offers as one explanation.
Here's a better one: The Commonwealth Fund-EBRI study is a piece of garbage. As Greg Scandlen of Consumers for Health Care Choices pointed out recently,
How do [the Commonwealth Fund and EBRI] reach these distortions? Well, they explain on page 5 that they conducted an on-line survey of 3,158 privately insured adults drawn from "Synovate's online sample of 1.5 million Internet users who have agreed to participate in research surveys." The self-selection problem here is huge, but it isn't until you get to page 46 that you discover the original "base sample" included all of 21 (that's twenty-one) people with CDHP coverage. They had to "oversample"ù to get more and that oversample was drawn from just "95,000 online panel members who met the criteria for our study (having private insurance and age 21-64)."Well said, Greg.Wait a minute. Only 95,000 of the touted 1.5 million database have private insurance and are between the ages of 21 and 64??? What kind of "random sample"ù is that supposed to be? This is what we are supposed to trust over the actual numbers reported by insurance companies and employers?
New Jersey Democrats
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 7:26PM
Today, New Jersey's legislature approved civil unions and expanded state support for embryonic stem-cell research. By opting for civil unions over full same-sex marriage, legislators in Trenton actually picked the more conservative of the two options their superiors on the state supreme court gave them.
Tax Reform and Social Security Reform…
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 6:51PM
…just got a little harder. Peter Orszag, an opponent of both, has been named to head the Congressional Budget Office.
No U-Turns Allowed
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 5:46PM
I've had a lot to say about Mitt Romney's social-issues switches this week, but I've got nothing that can top the entertaining exchange on the subject between David Frum and Andrew Sullivan.
Re: Clinton Attack Machine and Obama
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 5:37PM
Philip, the Clinton operation may not have to work too hard to dig up sordid details about Obama. This has been said before, but the man has not yet run in a serious race (sorry, Alan Keyes fans). He has not had a negative ad run against him. The media has not yet challenged him, or even done its own preliminary digging. (Junkets through Africa as part of the Obama fawning crew do not count. I am talking about something on the scale of sending reporters to Guatemala to knock on doors.) For a parallel politician, think of George Allen. Now I assume Obama is more ready for prime time than Allen was, but a tough lower-level race could flesh that out.
Re: From the Waiver Wire
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 3:37PM
Wlady, I think a few Yankees fans (like Philip) would disagree with you. Just get a "Lodi" this:
From the Waiver Wire
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 3:05PM
Not everyone may know that Senator Obama made his Monday Night Football debut the other day. He thinks he's so clever and hip, but there not much there, I'm afraid. Even by the new ESPN MNF standards, he's awful, and that's saying something (no offense to Joe Theismann, who's stuck on a very bad team). Not only is Obama not ready for prime time, he's not even ready for Saturday Night Live. Give me a genuine sports fan anyday, like that well-known ex-Cubs-turned-Yankee fan. I'm sure she'd make a better Bears song girl than Obama does a Bears fan.
Re: Jim Rutz is Nuts
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 1:35PM
Here's a long and interesting article on the scientific research into what causes homosexuality. You may notice that no one seems to think that exposure to hormones in food consumed in childhood has anything to do with it. But note this bit especially:
The cases of children born with disorders of "sexual differentiation" offer insight. William Reiner, a psychiatrist and urologist with the University of Oklahoma, has evaluated more than a hundred of these cases. For decades, the standard medical response to boys born with severely inadequate penises (or none at all) was to castrate the boy and have his parents raise him as a girl. But Reiner has found that nurture - even when it involves surgery soon after birth - cannot trump nature. Of the boys with inadequate penises who were raised as girls, he says, "I haven't found one who is sexually attracted to males." The majority of them have transitioned back to being males and report being attracted to females.According to Rutz's cracked theory, all these "girls" needed was plenty of soy milk and they would have grown up to be well-adjusted heterosexual women. Somehow, I think the hormonal effect of having one's testicles removed at birth is greater than that of consuming soy.
Johnson Update
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 1:25PM
Harry Reid says Johnson "looks really good" after brain surgery after experiencing bleeding of the brain, which may have been a form of a stroke after all. More details here and here. I'd view every story with caution at this point since things keep changing.
Re: Pronunciation
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:55AM
I emailed a friend of mine who speaks Japanese, and he wrote back:
Here's my spelling: die-sukay
But don't pause at the dash, and shorten the "kay" - almost as if there were no Y.
I'm not sure if I have the pronunciation skills to pull it off.
Meanwhile, he also wrote:
The blogger who wrote "golf announcers noted carefully that one should say Die-Soo-Kay, not Die-Soo-Kee. The latter is an endearment for a woman." He's close - "dai suki" means "I like/love you" - either male or female can use it.
As a Yankee fan, I'm just hoping he turns out to be another Hideki Irabu.
Clinton Attack Machine and Obama
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:43AM
One more quick point about Obama. Many pundits believe that the Clinton team will work overtime to dig up every sordid detail about him should he run. As Tony Blankley put it in a recent column:
If Hillary Milhous Clinton begins to believe that Sen. Obama is a threat to her inheritance of the White House -- it will not be long before his own mother will not recognize the public image that Hillary's operatives will have drawn of him.
I'm not so convinced this is the case. One thing to keep in mind is that to win the presidency, Hillary Clinton, like all Democrats, will have to count on strong turnout among black voters. If she's seen as using dirty tricks to torpedo the candidacy of a black candidate who is perceived as having a chance to win, it could really turn off a lot of black voters in the general election.
One parallel I can think of is the NY mayoral race of 2001. Mark Green won a bitter primary against Freddy Ferrer, who had a chance to be the first Hispanic mayor. The tactics Green employed during the primary angered many minority voters--and enough of them sat home on election day to help elect Michael Bloomberg.
I'm not saying Clinton can't think of some way to taint Obama's image, but I just think this will complicate her efforts to do so.
Re: Pronunciation
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:36AM
Paul, I'll just bet it's a matter of American deafness to accent, as I noted in my column on speech. I'll bet the name is pronounced DIE-su-kay, rapidly, in Japanese.
More Romney
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:31AM
NRO has a Q&A up with Mitt Romney in which the governor explains his views on social issues, foreign policy, and more.
Novak on McCain
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:26AM
Robert Novak explains today that the anointing of John McCain as the GOP standardbearer for 2008 has begun, just as it did for Bob Dole in '96 and for President Bush in 2000.
Viewing Republican presidential campaigns through this lens finds the corporate party selecting one candidate -- and invariably nominating him. It has nothing to do with ideology.
No kidding. It's the same behavior that returned Trent Lott to power, and kept John Boehner over Mike Pence for House Minority Leader.
Education Comes First
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:25AM
Phil: There's more to life than being the NFL's number one pick. By staying in school an extra year, Leinart completed his education (USC dancing classes are murder), beat Notre Dame in a titanic struggle, and became a fixture on the L.A. party scene. He's set for life.
Selective Indignation
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:13AM
Now he tells us. Washington Post powerhouse Howie Kurtz finds it awful that the Senate "could flip into Republican hands" merely because a Republican governor is in a position to appoint a Republican to succeed a Democrat. And lest you think he's being partisan, he adds, "I felt the same way when Jim Jeffords's party-jumping gave Senate control to the Democrats." Vermont voters had elected a Republican, and weren't getting what they voted for when of a sudden he became a Democrat or Independent. Fair enough. But where was Howie when it mattered? A Nexis search reveals not a peep of protest from Howard back when Jeffords did his dirty deed.
Meanwhile, like the New York Times Kurtz takes comfort in a Tim Russert-provided example of a Senator incapacitated for four years who did not give up his seat. He doesn't cite the case of Paul Coverdell, whose death set in motion the Senate's going Democrat once Jeffords made his infamous leap.
Will on Obama
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 11:12AM
George Will makes a good case for why Obama would be smart to run this time around. His argument rests on three main points: 1) He only gets to be the fresh face one time around 2) After flirting with running so publicly, if he bails now he'll be viewed as a big tease and 3) Hillary is the perfect opponent.
I tend to agree, especially with points 1 and 3. If Obama is forced to wait perhaps another 8 years, he'll no longer be the rising star, but just another senator. As I put it before, by waiting, he risks the Matt Leinart syndrome--for non sports fans, he's the USC quarterback who, by staying in college an extra year, dropped from being a sure #1 pick in the NFL draft to a #10 pick.
Cleaning the Scene
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 10:30AM
Ever wonder who it is that comes in cleans up after police are done investigating a messy crime scene? Me neither. But believe it or not there are businesses that specialize in that very thing. You just gotta have the nose and the stomach to handle it.
What a great capitalist country we have.
Re: Transactions
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 10:17AM
Larry, I was calling him "Die-Soo-Kay" until I saw this Associated Press story which states clearly, "Matsuzaka's first name is pronounced 'Dice-K.'" So I don't know.
I just hope he's putting up a lot of "K's" next season.
Tim Johnson
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 9:49AM
News reports say he is in critical condition but is doing well.
Get well soon, Senator.
re: Separation of Church and Sport
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 8:47AM
Wlady, the worst example of sports PC I ever saw happened after the Payne Stewart memorial service. Stewart and the two other passengers on the ill-fated lane, Van Arden and Bob Fraley, were all members of the same church in Orlando. So was Paul Azinger, who delivered an explicitly religious sermon at the service.
In a standup minutes after the conclusion of the service, Golf World's Tim Rosaforte did not mention any religious message whatsoever.
The message got through anyway. I corresponded with the pastor of that church briefly after the service. He credited Azinger's sermon with attracting an unprecedented number of inquires -- and new members.
Re: Transactions
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 8:17AM
Paul, I hear this morning on the radio that the Red Sox have signed Matsuzaka for what amounts to $15 million a year. I mentioned the pitcher in my column on the World Baseball Tournament last March:
"Japan's superb starting pitcher, Daisuke (I think of him as Duke) Matsuzaka, regularly brought a hummer of a fastball to the plate at 95 miles per hour. And he could throw nasty breaking pitches. He was named the tournament's most valuable player, and no wonder."
How long will it take before local sportcasters start pronouncing his first name right? Gil Santos, as you noted, says "Dice-Kay." It's Die-Soo-Kay. In golf, announcers had no trouble with new player Daisuke Maruyama. In fact, golf announcers noted carefully that one should say Die-Soo-Kay, not Die-Soo-Kee. The latter is an endearment for a woman.
Re: No Stroke, No Heart Attack
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 2:22AM
Clearly, Senator Johnson's condition is very serious. The New York Times reports this morning that the senator was in surgery as of 11 p.m. last night, "and was expected to be in the operating room until the early morning hours." The Washington Post notes that, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, South Dakota Democratic congresswoman Stephanie Herseth "said she thought Johnson had suffered a severe stroke." Ghoulishly or not, the Post recalls how in 2001 Democrats "were aware they could be a heartbeat away from the majority," implying that now the tables might be reversed. The Times, meanwhile, injects a more hopeful note, pointing to nine previous instances since 1942 in which senators remained in office despite months and even years of incapacitation.
Another Poll, Same Result
Posted by on 12.14.06 @ 2:01AM
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, like other polls, has Rudy Giuliani on top. (Story here; full results here). In the poll, Giuliani is at 34 percent, McCain is at 26 percent, Gingrich is at 12 percent, and Romney is at just 5 percent. Giuliani also had the highest favorability rating of any politician in either party, at 67 percent. Interestingly, "Romney had the worst ratio: 22 percent favorable to 24 percent unfavorable," which is odd, because most people don't know much about him.
For years I've been hearing that a) Rudy has no shot b) his 9/11 leadership will be forgotten by the time the primaries roll around c) he won't even run anyway. Yet, the reality is that a) poll after poll shows him either tied or in the lead for the GOP nomination b) more than five years after 9/11, he's still the most popular politician in America, and c) he spent the year zig zagging around the country for Republican candidates, forming an exploratory committee, and now hiring big names.
I think Deroy Murdock
put it well: "Rudolph W. Giuliani has achieved the impossible:
He's a front-running underdog."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
No Stroke, No Heart Attack
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 8:33PM
Good news on Sen. Tim Johnson, the AP reports.
Via Hotline.
Re: Landslide Libertarians
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 7:30PM
Philip: That gets at an important distinction. Kirby and Boaz focus on the "libertarian vote," but that's really overstating the case; what the polls actually identify is people who have vague libertarian sympathies. (The Pew Survey is actually more exacting on this front than some of the other surveys Kirby and Boaz have relied on in their work, as the questions it relies on for its ideological map are more specific and focused on issues currently in play.) These libertarian-leaners may or may not be politically important, but they are different from the statistically tiny number of libertarians who actually think a lot about politics and consider the implications of every policy from a philosophically libertarian viewpoint.
That smaller class of libertarians, though, has proven disproportionately important to politics thanks to the power of libertarian ideas. Milton Friedman (serving on a presidential commission that also included the then-still-Randian Alan Greenspan and the FEE-affiliated W. Allen Wallis) helped end the draft, Charles Murray laid the groundwork for Welfare Reform, and the idea of private accounts carved out of Social Security was the focus of a Cato Institute paper decades before it was in serious play politically. Ideas matter, which is why last week I approached the "liberaltarians" concept primarily in terms of intellectual principles.
(By the way, if all goes well I'll have a podcast on this topic -- both the ideas and the politics -- recorded with Reasonite Dave Weigel up at my home blog by the end of the week.)
Re: Romney Hammered?
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 7:28PM
A pet peeve of mine: Sargent writes that "the conservative American Spectator magazine has weighed in on the affair." No it hasn't; Jim Antle has. The piece wasn't an unsigned editorial (in fact, AmSpec doesn't have unsigned editorials), it was the work of specific writer. It's okay to ignore the byline when you're quoting a wire story or a straight news article, which (at least in theory) is just a transmission of facts rather than one person's viewpoint. But in opinion journalism, where the view expressed is not necessarily the editor's or the publisher's, you really should credit the author. Sargent's done plenty of opinion journalism himself, and ought to know better.
Re: Transactions
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 6:44PM
Philip, right now Rudy's moves don't much matter because it looks like WE GOT DICE-K!!!!
RE: Landslide Libertarians
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 6:14PM
I've been skeptical about the ability of polls to pick up the number of actual libertarians since I read a much-cited Pew survey from earlier this year on political ideologies. The study found that 9 percent of Americans were libertarian, but 80 percent of those it identified as libertarian supported increasing the mimimum wage.
Romney Hammered?
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 6:04PM
The gang at Talking Points Memo and TPMCafe detect "gay rights bashing" at The American Spectator. Apparently my piece from Monday not only "smacks" Mitt Romney for "pro-gay rights comments" but also features me "hammering Romney for his 'inconsistencies.'"
Relax. The article, as can be determined even from the portions TPMCafe quotes, discusses whether Romney's apparent shift on gay rights, as reported in such notorious gay-bashing publications as the New York Times, will undermine his claim to be the socially conservative alternative to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. I point out that both gay activists and religious conservatives from
If Greg Sargent thinks this analysis constitutes "smacking" and "hammering," he needs to get out more.
Senator Stroke Implications
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 5:03PM
If Democrat Johnson were replaced with a Republican by a GOP Governor in South Dakota, it would be no more controversial than when Georgia Democrat Governor Roy Barnes replaced Republican Paul Coverdell with then Democrat poster boy Zell Miller after Coverdell's untimely death. I don't recall any uproar at all over that.
More on Johnson's Stroke
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 4:57PM
Over at the Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez is uncomfortable talking about the possible implications of this news. Obviously, I also wish Johnson the best, and I'm sure network news reporters do as well, but I think it's perfectly legitimate for journalists to talk about the possible ramifications of this development--that's just providing context to the story for viewers and readers. Now, were a conservative blogger to write, "hopefully this guy croaks so we can take back the Senate," that would be a different story. But explaining the potential significance of this news story is perfectly appropriate.
Democratic Senator Suffers Stroke, MSNBC reports
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 4:44PM
If Senator Tim Johnson is forced to step down, South Dakota's Republican governor and legislature would have to appoint a replacement, possibly tilting the balance of the Senate to Republicans. No doubt, that would cause a great deal of controversy.
Via Raw Story.
RE: Transactions
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 4:09PM
Oh, but Paul, Rudy isn't serious about running! Don't you know that hiring a top RNC official is just part of his continuing plan to fool people into thinking he's running so he can maintain his high profile and funnel money into his consulting business?
Transactions
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 3:15PM
New York: Rudy Giuliani signals his seriousness and signs Mike DuHaime as executive director of his presidential exploratory committee.
Boston: The Red Sox signal their seriousness to the Yankees and are on the verge of signing Daisuke Matsuzaka to a six-year, $52 million contract.
Woo-hoo on that second move!
What Can't Brown Do For Jews?
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 3:02PM
Debbie Schlussel reports that UPS will not deliver packages to Jews living in remote parts of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but it will deliver to Arabs living in those territories. Arutz Sheva has more details, including comments from a UPS official, who says that delivering to the more remote Jewish settlements isn't "economically viable." However, it does deliver to remote Palestinian areas.
Landslide Libertarians
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 1:18PM
I'm late getting to David Boaz and David Kirby's TCS piece on the libertarian vote, which takes a look at the 2006 elections in the context of their recent Cato study. They point out that Libertarian Party candidates appear to have cost the Republicans the Senate by winning more votes than the Democratic margin of victory in Montana and Missouri (assuming that the balance of those votes would have gone to the Republican candidates). More controversially, they assert that libertarians are swing voters whose shifting allegiances endanger a government-happy GOP in the long term.
As an opponent of big-government conservatism, I'd like to believe that there is a politically significant group of libertarian voters ready to punish both parties for pandering to the more statist elements of their bases. But Boaz and Kirby don't quite convince me.
For starters, there is the problem of definitions. Is someone who is fiscally conservative but socially liberal necessarily a libertarian? A libertarian may favor keeping embryonic stem-cell research legal but a social liberal wants fund it with taxpayer dollars. A libertarian may favor abolishing sodomy laws but a social liberal wants to use government power to prevent private discrimination against homosexuals. (See John Tabin's recent liberaltarians column.)
That's just the social issues. Some self-described fiscal conservatives favor tax increases, and in some cases even higher marginal rates, to balance the budget. Others would be willing to tolerate deficit-financed tax cuts. Which of these positions is libertarian?
Definitions aside, do libertarians really play a pivotal electoral role? According to Boaz and Kirby, George W. Bush did much better with libertarians in 2000 than in 2004. But he did better with the electorate as a whole in the second election. GOP congressional candidates did 24 points worse among libertarians in 2006 than 2002. But Republicans actually did better with libertarians in 2006, when they lost the electorate as a whole, than in 2004, when they gained seats. And despite the swings big-government conservatism has apparently caused, Republicans continue to win the libertarian vote by double-digit margins.
What am I missing?
UPDATE: The other day on The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru also noticed that libertarians seem to have swung slightly more Republican this year compared to 2004. Today, he posts an update from David Kirby saying that the sample sizes are too small to make that claim with any confidence. That doesn't affect my points much, but it's worth noting.
It Just Keeps Coming
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 12:14PM
Congressman Henry Bonilla, a seven-term Republican, lost the runoff in Texas-23. Although the district was redrawn to include more Hispanics after the Supreme Court ruled that Texas Republicans had drawn it in a way that diluted minority voting strength, in violation of the Voting Rights Act, Bonilla had been the favorite to win (both Bonilla and his Democratic challenger, former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, are Hispanic). In November, the incumbent came within a point of avoiding the runoff entirely.
Instead, Rodriguez beat Bonilla by a better than 10-point margin. This leaves the Republicans with 200 House seats to the Democrats' 234, with one Florida race still in dispute but likely to go to the GOP.
Separation of Church and Sport
Posted by on 12.13.06 @ 11:23AM
Anyone who watched last Saturday's Heisman ceremony on ESPN or ESPN's highlights of that event would have heard winner Troy Smith begin his acceptance with remarks that included this:
"...First off I want everybody that's able to be here with us today to understand how much I'm thankful and I have to thank God first because without him none of this is possible. I sit in front of all you great people today and without God we wouldn't have the blessings that we have before all of us."
Such unabashed tribute to God always makes for a great media disconnect. A Troy Smith will invoke him, but so far as media reaction is concerned it's as if he never said those words. The Sunday writeups of Smith's prize quoted other things he said at the podium, but not his opening. TV might have covered the moment, but pretended it didn't hear the G-word. The other day I caught Suzy Kolber interviewing Chicago Bear kickoff return star Devin Hester, doing the usual "what did it feel like" to score two return touchdowns and break the single season record for return TDs. He replied by thanking God first of all and his mother. His reply washed right over Suzy. Religious feelings don't count when you're asked to explain what you felt!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Botched Joke Heard 'Round the World
Posted by on 12.12.06 @ 12:51PM
The idea of a second presidential run by John Kerry in '08 may be too much even for Teddy Kennedy. Massachusetts' senior senator told the Boston Globe he won't wait forever to back Kerry.
"I was under more of the impression before that he was going to run and was waiting in time [to declare his candidacy], but now he's deferred that decision," Kennedy said. "I have no plans of supporting anyone else at this juncture. I'm also not going to just wait indefinitely until he's made a judgment or a decision."
Teddy later issued a "clarifying statement" saying that he hadn't retracted his endorsement of Kerry and still planned to support the Bay State's junior senator if he declares his candidacy in the "near term."
Re: Romney and Social Conservatives
Posted by on 12.12.06 @ 11:50AM
The point is that Romney is trying to sell himself as the candidate for social conservatives and therefore the bar is set higher for him on social issues. He doesn't have the experience, name recognition, or national security credentials of McCain or Giuliani, so his path to the nomination is to portray himself as a true social conservative. Given that this has been the primary argument for his candidacy, he opens himself up to criticism of his past contradictory stances. And also, as James pointed out, it's not just a matter of him once being pro-choice and now being pro-life. In 1994, he ran for Senate in Massachusetts on being pro-choice, when he was in Utah in 2001 he rejected the pro-choice label, but when running for governor in 2002, he went back to being pro-choice again, only to end up as a born again pro-lifer in time to run for president as the socially conservative candidate. Yes, perhaps Romney is being sincere now, perhaps he isn't. We'll never know. But all we do know from his 12 year public record is that he has a history of taking positions on social issues that correspond exactly with what is most politically expedient at the time. In 2004, one of the primary arguments conservatives made against a John Kerry presidency was that he couldn't be trusted as a wartime leader because of his shifting positions on
Honoring Paul Johnson
Posted by on 12.12.06 @ 11:42AM
Paul Johnson, whose recent TAS review is featured on today's website, will receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom this Friday at a White House ceremony. Others to be honored with our nation's highest civilian distinction include William Safire, David McCullough, Natan Sharansky, B.B. King, and -- evidently following in the tracks of 2004 winners Paul Bremer, Tommy Franks, and George Tenet -- Norman Mineta.
Jobs for Iraqis
Posted by on 12.12.06 @ 10:50AM
Back in September I interviewed Hajim al-Hasani, a member of the Iraq Parliament, and at one point I asked him whether he thought people joined militias because of religious fervor or economic reasons, and he responded:
I think a very small percentage of these people became militia because of religious beliefs. Most of them I think became militia because of the economic situation in
. We've got 60 percent unemployment in Iraq ...So when somebody comes and says "I'm going to pay you $200 a month to be part of the militia," and you don't have a penny to spend on your family, I think everybody will accept that. And that's what's happening. This large number of people who are recruited in the militias basically are recruited because of the economic situation. Iraq
Now, the Pentagon has decided to reopen factories in
RE: Mitt Romney and Social Conservatives
Posted by on 12.12.06 @ 12:55AM
Ramesh Ponnuru responds to me and Leon Wolf: "Look, guys, I'm not ruling out the possibility that Romney has made a series of entirely cynical decisions to tack first this way and then that on the social issues. I'm just saying that we don't know that to be true."
Fair enough. I don't claim to know that to be true either. I think I've certainly given Gov. Romney the benefit of the doubt over the years; I've even voted for him twice. You can look at Mitt Romney's record in Massachusetts and make the case that he has always been as socially conservative as the prevailing political conditions permit. Or you can render a less flattering judgement. After a dozen years, I still don't know which version would be correct.
Yet given that Romney hasn't simply changed positions once but has actually bobbed and weaved on social issues since 1994, it is hardly unreasonable for social conservatives to ask tough questions. Excessive optimism about Republican politicians certainly hasn't served conservatives well in recent years. And, whatever the Kansas senator's many shortcomings, Sam Brownback has certainly accumulated a much more consistently conservative record on social issues than Mitt Romney. As Reagan might have put it, trust but verify.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Re: Liberaltarians
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 10:30PM
True enough, he did! But this match made in heaven can't rise above tryst level. Amidst all the heavy breathing, the central linkage-point between liberals and libertarians isn't political at all, but a strain of cultural libertarianism. Liberals would have to surrender their venerable desire to accomplish social unfetterment by state power, and "merely" political libertarians would have to sign on to social unfetterment as a positive, not negative, good. This is something like asking a paleocon to hang a framed, limited-edition dual portrait of Wilson and Truman in his den.
The unholy union of Hayek and Rawls requires an annihilation of cultural authority. But the blind substitutions of the inarticulate market and the inarticulate polity can, ironically, only agree in the realm of culture: the mores, norms, and attitudes that shape human behavior. Not old-style liberal "equality" but new-style "interchangeability" characterize cultural libertarianism. When mixed in with the inevitable "public safety" component which becomes the political conscience of an effete corps of lite libertines -- with no locus of authority other than health and pleasurable feelings, free to all -- the product this machine produces at the elite level rhymes, I think, with "Bloomberg."
PS in case anyone'd be sorry to miss it, my uproarious disquisition on this topic has made a semi-stir here.
Re: Liberaltarians
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 10:02PM
James writes:
I didn't. Lindsey did. Specifically:
Liberals and libertarians already share considerable common ground, if they could just see past their differences to recognize it....
It must be based on a real intellectual movement, with
intellectual coherence. A movement that, at the philosophical
level, seeks some kind of reconciliation between Hayek and
Rawls.
Re: Liberaltarians Revisited
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 9:16PM
Aw, come now, Mr. Klein, you prude, you puritan, you. Who said relationships have to be meaningful and compatible?
The NSA and Princess Di
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 7:16PM
A Brit newspaper is reporting that the US "secret services" -- presumably the CIA and NSA -- were spying on Princess Diana, bugging her telephone conversations in the summer of 1997, up to and including the day she died. But why would anyone bother? The British royals aren't much involved in politics or matters of national security.
There's only one reason I can think of. Was Clinton wanting to get the lowdown on her before asking for a date? I am pursuing other information from experts, trusted sources, and the usual suspects.
Mitt Romney and Social Conservatives
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 6:48PM
Are some social conservatives taking a counterproductive stance on the Mitt Romney flap I discussed in this morning’s column? Ramesh Ponnuru thinks so, asking whether Tony Perkins and Paul Weyrich really intend to “cast out anyone who has come over time to agree with them.” He says if that’s the case, social conservatives are “going to have to kick out Sam Brownback, too.”
This strikes me as a bit of a misreading. Romney isn’t running as a candiate who is “acceptable” to social conservatives. He is trying to prove that he is a better candidate on social issues than front-runners John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani. It seems to me that social conservatives aren’t asking very much when they demand that Romney’s record square with a major rationale for his candidacy. His social-issues conversion story is a significant part of his attraction, so it needs to be convincing.
This is especially true because Romney, a one-term governor, has a very short record. By 2008, Sam Brownback will be running on an 18-year conservative voting record, including at least a decade of serious commitment to social issues. The only background we will be able to judge Romney’s ’08 campaign promises against will be his four years as governor and his two previous campaigns for elective office.
What has some people worried is the fact that the positions Romney took on hot-button social issues during those two campaigns were frequently different than the ones he is taking today -- not just on gay rights but also on abortion. I expect at some point the other shoe will drop on gun control, though I’m not aware of any statements the governor has made suggesting he has moved right on Second Amendment issues. More importantly, the positions Romney took in 2002 are far closer to his 1994 positions than his new ones.
In every campaign Romney has run, there have been questions about his social-issues stands. Most of the statements on gay rights and abortion that have gotten Romney in trouble with social conservatives were made when he was being pressed by
Now He's Worse Than Hitler
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 6:19PM
The Huffington Post's Chris Kelly writes:
In real life, bombing
killed a half million civilians, but interned American and British airmen were generally treated according to the Geneva Conventions. They weren't systematically tortured. They weren't deliberately humiliated. They weren't held in solitary cells. International organizations were given their names and their families were informed of their capture. Their mortality rate was less than 1%. Germany And they were being held by the worst government on earth.
It's almost like the hippies at MoveOn have it backwards. When it comes to protecting his country, Hitler isn't George Bush.
Via Andrew Sullivan, who calls it a "brilliant piece of writing."
Tancredo and '08
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 5:06PM
I just spoke with Tom Tancredo as part of a longer piece I'm working on, and he told me he hopes to decide by February whether or not to make a bid for the White House.
Tancredo said, "I'm quite serious about considering it," and acknowledged that he would have to make a decision on the matter soon. "Admittedly, you can't wait very much longer if you really want to get involved, and you really want to make a credible run at this thing."
The obvious impetus for a Tancredo run would be if he felt his hawkish message on the immigration issue wasn't being represented, and so far, none of the top candidates who have entered the race are acceptable to conservatives who support tougher measures on illegal immigration.
"I think a candidate who enters the race who does so on more than just the immigration issue, but who certainly reflects what I believe to be the Republican grassroots position on the issue, would be formidable," Tancredo told me.
Though immigration is what he's most associated with, Tancredo is conscious of the prospect of being perceived as a single issue candidate: "I don't know that you could make, nor would I even if I entered the race…make [immigration] the only issue, because nobody can make a serious run for the presidency on a single issue like this."
If Tancredo does decide to run, I think he hurts Sam Brownback the most. With McCain, Giuliani and Romney dominating the field thus far, Brownback's only chance to gain traction is to build rock-solid support among grassroots conservatives, and his current liability among these folks is that he's perceived as weak on immigration. Tancredo's entrance into the race would further expose this weakness.
re: Libertarians
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 4:54PM
Jim, I see that Steve Sailer beat me to the punch -- no surprise. I too view libertarianism, as a formal political movement, as a near-nullity. That said, most Americans have a kind of libertarian streak, which Grover Norquist sought to mobilize in the "leave us alone" coalition. (Is he still holding meetings of same?) The proper candidate could arouse that impulse, and maybe capitalize on it to the extent of getting a bunch of votes out of it, but that candidate is likely to be a Republican by brand and allegiance, I'd think.
I do not see any convergence between liberals and libertarians, especially given modern liberalism's comfort with totalitarian impulses. Well, there's legalized marijuana. Heck, I'm in favor of that. It's got no traction as an election issue, however.
Annan's Farewell
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 4:18PM
The AP reports:
— In his farewell address Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized the Bush administration's leadership on the global stage, warning that INDEPENDENCE ,Mo. must not sacrifice its Democratic ideals while waging war against terrorism. America
Pinochet Dead, Continued
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 3:39PM
An interesting symposium. Mario Loyola reminds us that he did what "few dictators ever do: Upon losing by a small margin in a plebiscite that pitted him against the entire spectrum of political opposition, he resigned." The novelty of the dictator's resignation was obviously part of the reason that I kept forgetting he was still alive. But Otto Reich's portrait of Pinochet as a tragic figure strikes me as the best sum-up: "With some compassion and self-discipline, Pinochet could have been remembered as a liberator and not a despot. He was both."
On a Wing and a Prayer
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 12:37PM
Noam Schieber's New Republic story on the conversions of Sam Brownback--from evangelical Protestant to Catholic and from moderate Republican to conservative--was actually much more interesting and sympathetic than I expected. But I'm not yet convinced by this bit: "If everything breaks right, and social conservatives are particularly aggrieved over their party's standard bearer, Brownback could end up on the national ticket. "
It's not inconceivable, especially if Mitt Romney's overtures to evangelicals and other social conservatives fall flat. Social conservatives don't trust John McCain and disagree with Rudy Giuliani. Brownback would be a purer alternative. Maybe a Giuliani-Brownback or McCain-Brownback ticket would keep the values voters from staying home.
Yet the question conservative boosters of both Romney and Brownback need to ask themselves is whether the grassroots support is there. The Beltway right has rooted for conservative heroes in the Republican primaries before--think Jack Kemp in 1988, Phil Gramm in 1996, and, to a much lesser extent, Steve Forbes in 2000. At the ballot box, these candidates went nowhere.
And Brownback faces a second obstacle. Where does he stand in the "invisible primary" decided by fundraisers and Rolodex men, Pioneers and Rangers? Mitt Romney has a foothold there. Does Brownback?
Ahmadinejad Heckled
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 12:10PM
A classic demonstration of how the Iranian regime uses the United States as a scapegoat to help maintain its oppressive government. Citing the "semi-official Fars news agency" AFP reports on a student protest durning an Ahmadinejad speech at Tehran University :
"A small number of students shouted 'death to the dictator' and smashed cameras of state television but they were confronted by a bigger group of students in the hall chanting: 'We support Ahmadinejad',"
The story continues:
According to the student news agency ISNA, Ahmadinejad responded to the students' chants of "students can die but they do not accept degradation" by lashing out at the
United States. "Today, the worst type of dictatorship in the world is the American dictatorship which has been clothed in human rights," he said.
Via Drudge.
Re: Liberaltarians Revisited
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 11:45AM
I took another look at the original Brink Lindsey piece over the weekend and one of the things that struck me is that he calls for,"a real intellectual movement, with intellectual coherence" and yet most of the article focuses on specific policy areas where progressives and libertarians may be able to find common ground, rather than any sort of concept about the proper role of government that would unite the two camps on a more philisophical level. For instance, libertarians and most conservatives would probably be comfortable with Thomas Jefferson's call for "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." Libertarians and social conservatives may disagree on the application of this statement to something like drug policy (with libertarians saying as long as you don't "injure" others, all should be lawful, and social conservatives emphasizing that drug use isn't a pursiut of "industry and improvement.") But still, more conservatives than liberals would be comfortable with such a statement about the role of government. What type of statement would unite liberals and libertarians? Lindsey doesn't offer a clear answer. As I've said before, I can see how libertarians and liberals would come together on social and foriegn policy isssues, especially because the Republican spending record has neutralized fiscal issues. But that's still not enough for a meaningful, ideologically compatible, relationship.
Obama in NH
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 10:50AM
Appearing in
"
America is ready to turn the page… America is ready for a new set of challenges. This is our time. A new generation is prepared to lead."
Should Obama run, this is a pretty clear indication of how he would try to overcome his lack of experience by portraying himself as a fresh-faced agent of change. "A new generation" not only has a Kennedy-esque "New Frontier" type of feel, but can be seen as a subtle reference to the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton presidential dynasty that would be extended by a Hillary victory. There may be a market for Obama's youthful sunny optimism after years of divisive war. He still has his work cut out for him, and I personally would view it as a grave mistake to choose someone with his lack of experience to be commander-in-chief of the War on Terror, but there still could be a market for his brand of politics. I'm hesitant to buy into the hype, but I'm not willing to write him off either.
Liberaltarians revisited
Posted by on 12.11.06 @ 10:36AM
Does it matter whether libertarians are "fused" to the right or the left? A few of us around here obviously think so. Steve Sailer argues provocatively that however exciting this debate may be to the blogosphere's smart set, libertarians are just too marginal electorally for it to really matter. He paraphrases Stalin in asking, "How many divisions do the libertarians have?" Daniel Larison and Michael Brendan Dougherty agree.
Now, if you buy into David Boaz and David Kirby's study finding a significant libertarian-leaning swing vote -- I'm not yet sure whether I do -- you might quibble with Sailer on the number of libertarian voters. But ultimately, that isn't the point of this whole debate. Even though political consultants earn their livings by figuring out ways to attract the largest voting blocs, intellectual elites frequently do have a disproportionate impact on our politics. Take the neoconservative versus paleoconservative debate as an example. The number of people involved is actually quite small. Yet the difference it makes to the character of the American Right, which includes vast numbers of voters who couldn't explain the difference between a neocon and a paleocon to save their lives, is much larger.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Kill the President and Vice President = Laff-Riot!
Posted by on 12.10.06 @ 11:49PM
Comedian Greg Giraldo shot a cardboard cut-out of Dick Cheney with a shotgun during the opening skit of tonight's "Last Laugh '06" on Comedy Central -- because of Cheney's hunting accident, get it? Hey, it may be mean-spirited, but at least it's hackneyed and unfunny.
Later, Patton Oswald argued during his stand-up set that if Watergate and Zippergate set the standard for impeachment, "shouldn't Bush just be executed?" High-larious, huh?
Unintelligent
Posted by on 12.10.06 @ 7:40PM
Incoming intel chairman Silvestre Reyes is a bit fuzy on the whole know-thine-enemy front: When quizzed, he thought al Qaeda was Shiite and Hezbollah was Sunni. Oy. (Via Tom Maguire.)
Pinochet Dead
Posted by on 12.10.06 @ 7:06PM
Every few years I read some bit of table-pounding about how Augusto Pinochet ought to face trial, and each time I'm mildly surprised, having forgotten that Pinochet was still alive. That won't happen anymore.
- Religion Is Not the Enemy
- Madison vs. Obamacare
- Facing Up to Darwin
- Digital Subscription (Save 78%)
- Buy a single issue (Save 50%)
- Send Spectator as a gift
